Many of you will have already seen this as it has been bouncing around the agriculture online community; but better safe than sorry, I say.

The Ministry of Agriculture is developing a draft Minister’s bylaw standard for residential uses in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). It is intended to provide criteria to local governments across the Province as they develop their own bylaws.

The link below will take you to a Discussion Paper containing the bylaw standard for residential uses in the ALR, proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture. The associated survey asks questions specific to the Discussion Paper.

The comment period on the Discussion Paper closes at midnight, Pacific Time, July 14, 2011.

I strongly encourage Saanich residents to review the paper and tell the Government what you think of their proposed bylaw standard.

By Andrew MacLeodJune 2, 2011 11:20 am

The New Democratic Party's agriculture critic Lana Popham is questioning the government's delay releasing a report on the needs of the Agricultural Land Commission, an agency she says lacks the budget to do its job properly.

Agriculture Minister Don McRae says the "pretty comprehensive" report has been on his desk since he became minister and he hopes it can get cabinet approval and be released soon.

"I think it lays out exactly what they need to function," said Popham. "Right now they don't have enough money to fulfill their mandate and their mandate was to protect agricultural land and promote agriculture. It's at a point where they have no budget to do any of those things. It's a skeleton commission."

ALC Chair Richard Bullock submitted the report to the government last fall, but it just keeps getting shuffled around on the minister's desk, she said.

Meanwhile, farm land in the province is threatened by things like the dumping of fill from construction sites, she said. There are rules against it, but the ALC lacks the staff to enforce them, she said. "They can't keep on top of it, there's no budget and they're doing the best they can."

Burying farmland in fill can be lucrative, she said, citing the example of a Saanich farm that recently took 10,000 truck loads of fill at $70 each from the Uptown mall project. "It begins to be more profitable," she said. "It destroys the farmland."

McRae said he's trying to get the report in front of cabinet and hopes it can be released within the next two weeks.

"It's something that's really important to me, obviously," he said. "We want to make sure we go down a path that's going to be acceptable to government, and I think it's one of those areas we don't want to make any mistakes on."

Premier Christy Clark made McRae the minister on March 11. "It was there when I got to the ministry, so it's definitely been there for awhile," said McRae.

"Sometimes the wheels of government don't move as fast as we all would like, but at the same time the last thing I want to do is bring out something premature and find it's not going to meet the needs of farmers and British Columbians," he said.

Popham has made a request under freedom of information legislation for the report and other communications between the ALC and the ministry. "It would have been much easier if he would have released it months ago and we could have talked about what were the needs before we're going into another farming season," she said.

She's 'ticked' the agricultural sector doesn't have a stronger champion at the cabinet table, she said.

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here

Lana Popham, Incumbent & Candidate for Saanich South MLA

Welcome!

I've worked hard as the Official Opposition Critic for Agriculture over the last four years. This blog was created to help track my work so interested folks can see what I'm up to.

I'm not able to update it as often as I would like but it will give you a good sampling of my work.

During the dissolution of the BC Legislature (April 16 - June 5, 2013) this site will be shut down. Some content may remain visible as part of the public record of my past work but other content will be unvailable and/or links may be broken.

You can reach me at info@lanapopham.ca or visit my website at lanapopham.ca.